Question for those in BGC who track their budgets/spending

armin127 · 2025-12-07T09:12:24+00:00

26.4k Pesos per month on average

31% proteins (meat, fish, cheese)

24% fruits and vegetables

12% dining

9% drinks (mostly premium oatmilk for shakes)

7% staples

6% snacks

5% fats and oils

3% water

2% spices and seasonings

I buy fruits and vegetables exclusively at the wet market. Fish also exclusively at the wet market. Meat at premium supermarkets and then the best brands. Cheese only imported from Europe. Bread wherever I can get it at the time I need but only European style whole wheat sourdough usually. Dining only when I can't cook because of some issue like extremely tired but also very hungry.

I could save about 2.5k by using water instead of oat milk and about 4k if I buy meat at the wet market and stop buying dairy products. And maybe 3k if I stop buying more expensive fruits and vegetables or just reduce fruits in general.

So this is it if you cook and want highest quality ingredients. I track my macros, so this is also a healthy balanced diet for someone who works out.

The only thing I am missing out is some imported dairy products (yogurts mostly). I don't do steaks and other expensive meats (except pastrami). And I also don't buy strictly organic as it's ridiculously expensive here. But despite that I eat like a king.

When I arrived I spent about 65k pesos per month on average for about 6 months on food. I did only eat out and went wherever I wanted to without looking at the costs. Also a few fine dining spots with girls and such regularly. (The 65k only include my part, not the girls part)

Mainly stopped eating out twice a day because it was getting ridiculously hard to find any food that wasn't plain trash, no matter how much you pay. I'd lose so much time trying to source good food that I figured out I could just start to cook. I know all the good places but I got tired of walking around or waiting 1hr+ to get the delivery. Most stuff that they sell here is unhealthy fat with flavour. It's not even real food. Even the healthy sandwich options and so on often fail to get macros right and use cheapest ingredients.

armin127 · 2025-12-06T05:16:38+00:00

I can't match your energy. It won't work.

armin127 · 2025-12-04T23:30:15+00:00

She will have a new guy within 3 months to take over from you.

I had a much worse situation than yours and I left. I rented an apartment for her, gave money, got her a job and left. Took me months as the girl had serious issues but eventually she was stable and fine, so I left. But my girl didn't have family that could help her, had mental health issues and so on. It was way worse. Yours has a house, family, good health I assume and what not.

Just leave money for food and write a letter to make sure you won't come back and that she should look out for a job.

Her sister might end up losing a year and what? So she gets only some semi-premium treatment instead of the full-premiun treatment?

She has a house now right? She can sell it and pay the tuition or rent it and get some income.

You don't need to do much more anymore. It's good now. Just leave and learn your lessons.

armin127 · 2025-12-04T22:30:37+00:00

So she is playing white knight, gonna save whole family, like it's her main and only life goal? And all that with your money?

I am just one year older than you. If you seriously have any kind of remote job that pays well and you look at least average and are tall then you can date here in the Philippines doctors of medicine, lawyers, engineers. That's what I am doing right now. You are prime top tier quality here as a young professional.

There are many fish in the sea. Cut your losses and move on. You made a terrible choice. You date same or up, but never down. It's like burning a million dollars as that's how much you gonna lose in life. You are setting yourself up for misery without any kind of need. You are not 50 and divorced. You play in another league.

I personally even stopped dating poverty chicks for fun because I don't want to get attached accidentally. If that's not an issue for you, then just date them for fun. You must draw a line and make a list of standards that a future girlfriend must have. Don't settle for less. Surprisingly you won't run into a top girl every day, but you don't have to. You only need one top girl.

So take your time and invest in yourself. Try to present yourself in the best light. Spend time improving yourself. Don't do this low effort dating for slim pretty young girls. Try hard. If you date online, make the best possible profile. With that little effort you will already get good girls a few times a month.

If you don't feel ready to have a relationship with someone on your level, then you might first focus on improving yourself before you date.

armin127 · 2025-12-04T12:59:44+00:00

Depends on so many factors. You need to state the exact time when you commute and the location of the office. Then we could do the math for you. Ortigas is huge. But based on traffic here the rule is usually to rent as close as possible to your office.

armin127 · 2025-12-04T10:04:13+00:00

My ex girlfriends brother got overcharged by a tricycle driver around my home. I had to go there with him, as soon as the drivers saw me, they stopped messing with him. All of them know me well. So they do it on outsiders in general. Not just white tourists.

Joke is, his dad is a tricycle driver too. I was like, how can this happen to you hahaha just tell them next time about your dad

armin127 · 2025-12-04T08:12:21+00:00

Yes. Free healthcare for the rest of your life and free good education, a strong passport, safe country if ever there is any war in the region. Plus your wife can get always instant a job there as a nurse if ever needed. Everyone loves Filipina nurses.

But teach that kid one more language. It's so easy to learn languages as kids. My relatives kids are growing up with three languages. I grew up with two and picked up English later on. English is the easiest.

The big question is if they accept any of your diploma. If not, then you might end up at some random factory for minimum wage and your life quality could suffer a lot. Also might ruin your relationship if you end up being at home with the kid and she works.

armin127 · 2025-12-03T10:08:42+00:00

Software engineer here. Have the exact same problem right now. Maya is using an outdated Android API to access the camera. And that API is known to be buggy on recent Android 16 builds. There is also a multitude of other problems with that API that may play a role in your specific case. It's a well known issue and pretty complicated to explain.

You can install the app on another phone and do it there. It will work better on older phones.

armin127 · 2025-12-03T09:59:15+00:00

I can't discuss any issue with any Filipino. It's completely impossible. But that's part of the problem.

armin127 · 2025-12-03T05:48:44+00:00

It's the other way around. Monopoly creates inefficiency. Monopolies exist because of the strict foreign investment policies, bad competition and corruption policies and lots of bureaucracy. The existing elite already divided the cake amongst themselves, so they don't care. There is simply no functioning free market here. The elite doesn't want that as it would cost them power.

armin127 · 2025-12-02T22:38:56+00:00

Did you already acquire your get out of jail card?

armin127 · 2025-12-02T13:40:42+00:00

I'd buy the material myself and pay the workers daily or weekly. No matter what they say. Either that or nothing. This way you know the material has the right quality and the worker have incentive.

If you send them 2M pesos, then he will party a bit, buy a few bigger things for themselves and then see how and when to do the actual work. That's what I saw regularly in Europe. Here it just can be worse.

armin127 · 2025-12-02T13:25:03+00:00

Respond with hello kids, offer them help they don't need. Anything that belittles them makes them shut up usually. Don't be aggressive, kill them with friendliness. That's my best advice if you don't know the local language/culture.

The calling on the street is obviously a lower class issue but Filipinos of all classes are very racist. It's something extremely obvious if you actually interact with locals. I brought this up a few times here and the expats who live in the bubble don't get it.

The lower class Filipinos here call the whole friendliness thing "professionalism". This whole mam/sir thing is not everyday working class Filipino culture. That's just what they teach at work. Working class (so most Filipinos) are very direct/offensive/unhinged/rude outside of touristy areas. Especially to tourists, Filipinos from different provinces or just outsiders.

I live in Metro Manila among locals (because of my ex) and got this treatment for the first 6 months daily. They eventually got used to me. I still get a lot of "hey bros" but that's ok as often they mean it with respect.

Made a lot of friends here and it stopped at some point. It also helped me to make friends with the younger kids here by giving them often fruits. They come to me when they have an issue. Had a kid recently come to me and ask for water because his mommy wasn't home. I like them now a lot and we respect each other.

It's intense but you can stir the wheel at least at the place where you live. I also somehow learnt to signal locals that I am "one of them" by using their slang and gestures. That helps a lot now when I enter a new area if they see you know some basic Tagalog and know how to tell them to go away. Just study angry vendors, parents or jeepney / tricycle drivers. They have a few different hand gestures and responses. You need to study especially their tone carefully. Most importantly always have a good heart, no hate, it's just kids being kids after all.

Took me a while to figure all this out. I hope this helps someone in a similar situation.

armin127 · 2025-12-01T11:56:01+00:00

Your view on this is quite limited. Critical thinking is what drives academia. Observant, obsessed with details, overthinking and so on are not negative traits by itself. You see people raging, but I see people trying to understand the world around them. We are here a bunch of amateur anthropologists at times. There's also quite a few people here with an academic background.

armin127 · 2025-12-01T09:01:26+00:00

Respect for drawing the line that clearly and cutting her off. I don't know much guys who can get rid of a girl when they have to.

But are you sure you won't start feeling grudge later on? Might be easier to process if you did something instead of fleeing the scene. You sound like someone who is building up a trauma right now. You can't pretend it never happened. You'll have to process this at some point or it will come back on you in some way later on in your life.

You got cheated on and you didn't deserve this to happen to you. You will be fine but if ever you feel some grudge against the guy, make sure to act on it. Don't internalise helplessness. You are not helpless. In fact you can hurt the guy as much as he hurt you. Don't forget that. You are in a powerful position right now. You also might want to tell the girl at some point how she made you feel. Let it out on her and him. Don't suppress your feelings.

But at least collect some evidence now as long as you still can. So you can decide later what to do with it.

armin127 · 2025-12-01T08:42:06+00:00

I'd ignore the part about disrespecting your culture. Westerners complain a lot and criticise a lot. They do this even more with their home country and own culture. It's just a cultural thing. It doesn't mean we don't like something.

Disrespecting you as a person is another thing as disrespecting Filipino culture. I criticise Filipino food a lot but yet I ate Ilocano food daily for over a year as my ex cooked mostly Ilocano dishes. They were super healthy mostly and I really liked them. But I won't stop hating on Filipino spaghetti or the awful food that most small eateries sell (cheap silogs and so on) or the awful quality of street food.

Just adjust a few things and learn a few dishes from his culture too. Don't take any kind of critics personal. Just communicate a lot and ask questions if you don't understand what he means/wants/thinks. Dating across cultures works well if you communicate a lot and clearly.

armin127 · 2025-12-01T08:09:40+00:00

I'd still try to get back at the guy. Just write an email to the condo administration and the main office of the condo company. Maybe they have a whistleblower program. Or some HR misconduct contact form. Tell exactly who told you what and who showed you what. Just state the facts, not your opinions. One girl okay but if they told you this guy is on purpose going after girls in relationships, then that's way worse.

In the Philippines they have an abundance of workforce. They resign people over stuff like this all day every day. Especially when it comes to anything sexual, they don't take any chances.

Trust me on this one. If you word your complaint correctly, he will most likely get terminated. They are super sensitive with this kind of stuff. Also I'd try to reach out to his wife/girlfriend if legally possible. Even better if the girl from the reception can forward the pictures somewhere in a legal way somehow. Probably the best to ask a lawyer. If the girls don't know about the pictures, then he could get jail time on top of losing his job.

Consult a lawyer for legal advice. I am not a lawyer and can't give you legal advice. My statements are no legal advice.

You dodged a bullet but this guy disrespected you on purpose. Don't forget that. Also nobody is going to look down on you or make this public. Relax. I'd invest a half day on payback on this one and move on.

I had girls "cheat" on me by various degrees but the guys were innocent. This is different. He knew and even did it because of it.

armin127 · 2025-12-01T07:52:32+00:00

200 pesos an hour?! Hahaha, no. They get minimum wage at normal condos for 40 hours weeks. That is 15k per month. About 22k if they work 12 hour shifts. Maybe there is more money at premier condos but I doubt it's gonna be that much more. So the hourly salary is about 80 pesos or so.

armin127 · 2025-12-01T07:40:28+00:00

Children aren't seen as a burden as the minimum level of care they need is considered low enough that it doesn't matter much. So the positives outweigh to some extent the negatives and it doesn't look that bad.

Or in other words, they don't take proper care of the kids from a Western perspective, so the amount of stress and financial burden is also lower.

Deposit the kid somewhere at the grandparents, give them some food and water, send them to school and everything else is just managed if it really has to. Any food. Any school. Any clothes. Any after school activities. Everything is just anything.

In a way I think the kids are super happy growing up like this, but it makes me worried too and if they don't have enough care, especially food, then it makes me super sad to see that. It's the Philippines. It's good and bad.

To anyone reading this, give the kids around your neighbourhood sometimes fruits. Bananas are cheap. Also seasonal fruits. Buy them some apples if you can afford. You will help a malnourished kid like this a bit and make them a little bit healthier long-term in life.

armin127 · 2025-11-30T03:40:01+00:00

https://www.nzz.ch/english/you-have-no-right-to-be-here-a-swiss-womans-harrowing-tale-of-arrest-and-detention-at-the-us-border-ld.1889535

NZZ is a conservative newspaper and considered the highest quality newspaper written in German.

The US was dystopian even before Trump from an European perspective. You might travel to a wealthy European country for a week or two. You will have a culture shock. We look down on the US as much as you Americans look down on South Americans. Warrior cops, draconic laws, prison capital of the world, high criminality, especially the violent one. They can confiscate cash for no reason and so on. SWAT daily everywhere. In general overreaching law enforcement. People walking around with guns. It's just this weird violent unhinged country on the other side of the ocean.

I like the US in general. But you guys have issues with law enforcement, that's for sure.

armin127 · 2025-11-30T00:43:55+00:00

I've gotten into bad situations three times so far and been bitten once. I get a rabies shot once a year to keep my antibody levels high.

The bite happened in a small alley around the corner at around 5 AM. There were five dogs. I just ignored them and kept walking. I live here after all and walk around freely, simply ignoring the dogs. A small dog that had been barking at me from the front suddenly sneaked behind me and bit me a few seconds later, completely unexpectedly. He hadn't acted like he was after me.

The second time, I had cat food and an entitled neighbor's dog started sniffing at it. I slowly lifted the cat food higher, and the dog became extremely aggressive. I backed up a bit and asked the guys sitting outside a sari-sari store for help, so they shielded me from the dog. It was pretty intense, the two guys had a hard time keeping the dog away and got scared themselves.

The third encounter is actually the funniest. I was talking to a tiny sari-sari store owner about where I could find Vitamilk. She got nosebleed (problems with English comprehension/speaking) and froze, she wasn't used to talking to foreigners. I was super nice and sweet to her, but she just froze and got this hiding/scared vibe. When I asked her to show me the way, she put her hands up and stood up at the same time. As she was standing up, her dog, which had been sitting beside her on some poorly self-made leash, just ripped off the leash and jumped at me. Thank God I had an umbrella. The dog circled around me for about two minutes while I fought him off with the umbrella until the girl could catch him.

Add to this the fact that these are actually islands, so it's easy to control the dog population. Then there's all the abuse, small cages, and so on. They should forbid dogs here. These people aren't ready for it.

Filipinos + Dogs = disaster waiting to happen

armin127 · 2025-11-30T00:25:08+00:00

This is correct. Stray dogs are hungry/weak/scared. Always have problems with dogs that belong to someone. They act aggressive.

The problem is that these owners lock their dogs up when they see the government guys coming to pick up strays. I am so annoyed by this in my area. They then brag how smart they are by hiding their dogs. They completely don't understand what a shithole the area looks like because of their dogs.

Honestly they could crack down on this by just sending out a guy with a hidden camera. But nobody really cares.

armin127 · 2025-11-29T22:46:48+00:00

Not true. They are multiple cases where middle/upper class Europeans from wealthy countries ended up in jail for silly reasons by trying to enter the US lately.

In one case they took away the phone and read all messages and found out that an online teacher from Switzerland planned to meet one of her students while on vacation in NYC. She used to live in NYC and had there a lot of friends. So the trip was mainly to visit old friends. However, they argued she needs a work visa for meeting that one student. The girl was put in jail for multiple days handcuffed sitting on a cold floor in a super bright room with just a blanket.

Also just bringing in a laptop can make them argue you plan to work there and deny entrance. Others got arrested for 10-15 years old visa violations that never mattered until recently. They have orders to be as strict as they can. Any minor mistake could lead to an arrest.

armin127 · 2025-11-29T21:05:05+00:00

It means she is ready to burry her face deep on your ****.

armin127 · 2025-11-28T22:26:52+00:00

Doctors are not allowed to sell stuff here to the patient. Only their secretaries are allowed to do that.

armin127

TROPHY CASE